Why Ready Player One Replaced The Jurassic Park Velociraptors In One Epic Scene

Ready Player One is full of more pop culture easter eggs and references than it might be possible to count. However, one of the most popular moments in the film was originally going to include Jurassic Park dinosaurs. Zak Penn recently revealed on CinemaBlend's ReelBlend podcast that the scene in the climactic battle that sees Child's Play's Chucky make an appearance was originally going to be a Jurassic Park velociraptor. The problem? It's actually a little tough to throw a dinosaur out of a moving Delorean. According to Penn...

We actually had a velociraptor, at one point. Chucky took the place of the velociraptor, originally. But, I mean, Chucky worked better. Originally he just throws a velociraptor out of the window. ... It was also hard to fit him out of the window.

Steven Spielberg had said during the production of Ready Player One that he was generally against the referencing of his own films, only allowing the Delorean from Back to the Future, which he produced, to make the cut. Based on what Zak Penn says, Spielberg wasn't looking to include this reference to Jurassic Park that was in the original script. Penn is also sure to clarify that the T-rex that appears early in the movie is explicitly not supposed to be the one from Jurassic Park but is instead simply a dinosaur. Ultimately, the decision not to use the velociraptor worked out, as the logistics of throwing a dinosaur out of a car was going to end up being a problem anyway.

As cool as seeing a velociraptor in Ready Player One could have been, having now seen the final version, it's difficult to imagine seeing anything other than a homicidal doll in that spot. Chucky was perfect, as he tore through numerous enemies, and was also the cause of the PG-13 movie's single allotted F-bomb.

Zak Penn says that removing most of the Steven Spielberg related references was ultimately the right decision, as including them in a movie that Spielberg also directed would have likely taken a lot of the audience out of the movie. It's hard to say if that was true, but clearly, the decision worked overall, as most viewers have been happy with Ready Player One overall.

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